One or more aspects of the present invention relate, in general, to managing storage of a computing environment, and in particular, to managing the obtaining of storage blocks.
A computing environment may include main memory, as well as auxiliary storage, such as direct access storage devices (DASD) or flash memory. Main memory includes pages of memory that are backed by real storage, referred to as real storage frames. These pages are ready to be accessed by applications, instructions, operations, or other entities. Main memory is limited in space, and therefore, typically only the most recently used pages of memory are maintained in main memory. The other pages of memory are maintained in auxiliary storage.
Auxiliary storage may include blocks of storage that are read and written. These blocks of storage are managed, including the allocation/deallocation of the blocks. In one example, the operating system tracks which blocks are currently being used and by what system components.
The allocation/deallocation of storage may lead to fragmentation and inefficient use of the auxiliary storage space.